The Japanese government has pledged 250 million U.S. dollars worth of development assistance to the Philippines for the rehabilitation of areas damaged by typhoons Ketsana and Parma.
In a speech delivered Wednesday at the Second Public-Private Sector Dialogue for Post-Disaster Assistance, Japanese Ambassador Makoto Katsura
said the yen loan package will be coursed through the existing development policy support program.
"Once a natural disaster occurs, it undermines the fruit of development accumulated over many years and hinder the achievement of sustainable
development. For this reason, Japan has put in so much effort at supporting Asian countries in the field of disaster prevention," Katsura said.
The new loan package is on top of the humanitarian assistance that has been released earlier by the Japanese government to assist the victims of the two typhoons.
"We understand recovery efforts at an early stage need quick disbursement of a substantial amount of finance," Katsura said.
He added that the Japan International Cooperation Agency will send a fact-finding mission to assess the damage wrought by the two typhoons.
JICA is also conducting a study to reduce risk of disaster and mitigate its impact on the Philippines.
Japan is the biggest foreign donor to the Philippines and has extended over 9 billion U.S. dollars worth of Official Development Assistance (ODA) this year.